Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Another great, great, great Turkish musician and singer. One has to hand it to the Turks: When it comes to being a great traditional musician AND singer, they are hard to beat. The first time I came across Ali Ercan (pronounced 'er-djan') was in the ever-so-'umble shop of a 'kasetci' ('cassette-dji' in English) in the town of Ispir in North-eastern Anatolia. Unsatisfied with the age of the music the owner played for me, I asked him for cassettes of 'very old' traditional Turkish music. He began to play a song by Ali Ercan - one with a synthesizer. I said that this was certainly not old enough, to which he answered: 'You must be joking! Even Ataturk himself went to the concert!'----

Having just trawled through several (9) albums by Turkish musician and singer Abdullah Papur, I have come to the decision that it was worth listening to songs I really did not like for over an hour just to end up with this one song: Uzak yoldan gelen yolcu ('A traveller comes from afar'). Admittedly repetitive, but nonetheless a "traditional club-banger"!--

Turkish music combined with jazzy funk... On the surface, an almost unbeatable combination, and one which Ferdi Özbeğen has undoubtedly pulled off with this song: Köprüden geçti gelin ('the bride crosses the bridge', I think - Turkish speakers: please help!).-Born in Izmir in 1941, Ferdi Özbeğen seems to have been one of the "kings of 70s cheese" of Turkish music, but this song - taken from an apparently quite rare compilation entitled 'Bosporus Bridges - A Wide Selection of Turkish Jazz and Funk 1969-1978' (Discogs - link >>>) - is just unbelievably good!-Having just returned from a week-end jumping off a yacht in a bay near Bodrum, I can safely say that this tune of Ferdi's is one of the best cures for "post-Bodrum blues" I could ever have imagined!--